I stand before the mirror in our bedroom—mine and Raylan's—though it hasn't felt like ours in months. My fingers work through my hair, braiding it in that familiar pattern I've done since I was a girl. Mom always said I braided when I was nervous, and tonight, the Blood Moon festival has my stomach in knots.

The mating mark on my neck catches my eye. I touch it, and the skin feels cold. Wrong. It should pulse with warmth, with the connection between me and my Alpha, my mate. Instead, it's like touching ice.

*Raylan?* I reach out through our mind-link, trying to coordinate our entrance to the ceremony. As Luna of the Silver Moon Pack, I'm supposed to enter the hall on his arm, a united front for our people.

The response is a mental door slamming in my face. The force of his rejection sends a spike of pain through my skull, and I grip the edge of the vanity to steady myself. He blocked me. My own mate blocked me.

I take a breath and smooth down my dress. Maybe he's just stressed about the festival preparations. Maybe I'm overthinking this.

Downstairs, the great hall thrums with music and laughter. I pause in the shadows of the corridor, searching for Raylan's familiar form. When I find him, my heart drops into my stomach.

He's laughing. Not the polite chuckle he gives pack members, but a real laugh, his head thrown back, eyes bright. And beside him, wearing a dress in our pack's ceremonial silver and blue—colors reserved for the Alpha family—is Piper Mendez.

She touches his arm, and he doesn't pull away.

I breathe in, trying to catch his scent, that crisp cedar and rain that used to make my wolf purr with contentment. But all I smell is Piper's vanilla perfume, thick and cloying, drowning out everything else.

My wolf, Sera, whimpers in my mind. *Something's wrong.*

I know. I've known for weeks, but I've been too afraid to face it.

I slip away before anyone notices me standing there like a ghost at my own pack's celebration. In the kitchen, I prepare Raylan's favorite tea, the herbal blend that soothes Alpha aggression. My hands shake as I pour the hot water, watching the steam rise.

This will fix it. A quiet moment, just the two of us. We'll talk, really talk, and everything will go back to how it was.

The corridors to his private office are empty, everyone at the festival. My footsteps echo too loud in the silence. When I push open his door, I freeze.

Piper sits at Raylan's desk—his desk—wearing his jacket. The leather one I gave him for his last birthday.

She looks up at me with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "Oh, Luna. How... domestic."

I hold up the tea pot, trying to keep my voice steady. "I'm looking for Raylan."

"The Alpha is busy handling Rogue threats in the lower storage wing." She examines her nails, bored. "He specifically asked not to be disturbed by domestic trivialities."

The words sting, but I force myself to nod. "I'll wait."

"Actually," Piper stands, running her fingers along the edge of Raylan's desk, "he left something for you. A gift. In the secure storage room downstairs. He wanted you to retrieve it yourself. You know how he loves his surprises."

Hope flutters in my chest, fragile and desperate. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he does still care.

"Thank you," I manage, and turn toward the stairs.

The lower storage wing is colder than the rest of the pack house, and the air tastes wrong. Heavy. Sweet in a way that makes my head swim. I recognize it too late—wolfsbane.

My Luna aura flickers like a candle in the wind. I stumble, catching myself against the wall. The steel door to the secure storage room stands ajar, and I push it open, searching for whatever gift Raylan left.

There's no gift. Just a bare mattress on the concrete floor and Rex Mendez, Piper's brother, standing in the corner. He's massive, easily two meters even in human form, and his eyes are unfocused, confused.

I turn to leave, but the door slams shut behind me. The electronic lock clicks.

"Hello, Luna." Piper's voice crackles through the intercom speaker, and my blood turns to ice. "You know, the pack has been so disappointed in your barren womb. Three years and no heir? Unacceptable."

I pull at the door handle, but it won't budge. The wolfsbane is stronger here, making my limbs heavy, my wolf unreachable.

"Don't worry," Piper continues, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "The pack will finally get the heir they deserve. Just not from Raylan."

Rex moves toward me, his steps uncertain but determined. I try to shift, to call on Sera, but the wolfsbane has me trapped in this fragile human form.

"Rex, stop," I say, backing against the wall. "You don't want to do this."

But his eyes are glazed, and I smell something else now, something chemical mixed with the wolfsbane. Whatever Piper gave him, it's overriding his reason.

I open my mouth to scream, but his hand covers it, and the world tilts sideways into nightmare.

I wake to white ceiling tiles and the smell of antiseptic. My body screams with pain, every muscle protesting as I try to move. The hospital. I'm in the pack hospital.

Memory comes in fragments. The storage room. Rex's glazed eyes. Piper's voice through the intercom. The wolfsbane making everything hazy and wrong.

I touch my neck, searching for the mate mark, needing that connection to Raylan. It's there, but cold. So cold.

The door explodes inward. Raylan fills the doorway, his eyes glowing red, his Alpha aura so thick it makes the air vibrate. I've never seen him like this—pure rage, barely contained.

"Who?" His voice is barely human. "Who touched you?"

I'm shaking so hard my teeth chatter. "Rex. Rex Mendez."

The roar that tears from his throat shakes the building. Windows rattle. Somewhere down the hall, someone screams. He's gone before I can say another word, and I hear his footsteps pounding toward the holding cells.

Relief floods through me. He'll kill Rex. He has to. Pack law is clear—assault on a Luna means immediate execution. No trial. No mercy.

I close my eyes and wait for justice.

An hour passes. Maybe two. When the door opens again, Raylan's rage has transformed into something worse. Something cold.

Piper follows him in, her eyes red and puffy, mascara streaking her cheeks. She's crying. Actually crying.

"Phoebe." Raylan's voice is measured now. Controlled. "We need to discuss the situation."

Situation. He called it a situation.

"Rex won't be executed," he continues, and the words don't make sense. Can't make sense.

"What?"

"He's mentally unfit to stand trial. Killing him would cause political unrest with the Mendez family. They're Gamma blood. We can't—"

"He assaulted me." My voice cracks. "He—"

Piper steps forward, wringing her hands. "He didn't mean it, Luna. He's confused. He doesn't understand these things. And your scent—" She pauses, dabbing at her eyes. "You must have provoked him somehow. He's never done anything like this before."

I stare at her. At Raylan. Waiting for him to defend me. To tell her she's insane.

He says nothing.

"Raylan." I reach for him, but he steps back. "You can't be serious. Pack law—"

"I am Alpha." His voice drops into that commanding tone that makes wolves submit. "I decide pack law."

"You're my mate."

"And I'm making the decision that's best for the pack." He won't meet my eyes. "Rex will be confined. Monitored. But execution would tear this pack apart."

Piper touches his arm. He doesn't pull away.

I spend the next week in a fog. They keep me in the hospital for observation, but I barely notice the nurses coming and going. Sera is silent in my mind, retreating so deep I can't reach her.

When Marcus Thorne enters my room with the ultrasound machine, I already know. My body feels different. Wrong.

His hands shake as he runs the scanner over my abdomen. The monitor flickers to life, and there it is—a tiny cluster of cells that shouldn't exist.

"I'm sorry, Luna." Marcus's voice is barely a whisper. "You're pregnant."

Raylan stands in the corner. I didn't even hear him come in. He moves to the monitor, staring at the screen with an expression I can't read.

"How far along?" he asks.

"About a week," Marcus says.

Raylan's jaw clenches. Then something shifts in his eyes. Something calculating.

"Change the records," he says.

Marcus blinks. "Alpha?"

"The conception date. Make it match my last heat with Phoebe. Three weeks ago."

"But that's—"

"An order." Raylan's Alpha tone fills the room, and Marcus flinches.

I find my voice. "No."

Raylan turns to me. "This child will be the heir. Our heir. No one needs to know the truth."

"It's not yours."

"It will be." He moves closer, and I smell his scent—cedar and rain, but tainted now with something bitter. "We'll raise it as ours. The pack will never know their Luna was defiled by a Rogue."

Defiled. The word hits like a slap.

"This is about your reputation," I whisper. "Not mine. Yours."

"This is about the pack." But his eyes tell a different story. "You'll keep this child, Phoebe. You'll carry it to term. And we'll present it as the Alpha heir."

"And if I refuse?"

His expression hardens. "You won't."

Marcus looks between us, his face pale. "Alpha, perhaps we should—"

"Leave us," Raylan says.

Marcus practically runs from the room.

I touch my stomach, feeling the foreign presence growing inside me. Rex's child. The product of violence and betrayal.

"I won't do this," I say.

Raylan leans down, his face inches from mine. "You will. Because you're my Luna, and you'll do what's best for this pack."

The mate mark on my neck burns like ice.

"I want an abortion."

The words come out raw, desperate. I'm still in the hospital bed, Marcus hovering near the door like he wants to disappear into the walls.

Raylan's expression doesn't change. "No."

"It's my body. My choice. I won't—I can't—" My voice breaks. "Please, Raylan. Please don't make me do this."

He moves closer, and his Alpha aura fills the room like smoke, thick and suffocating. I can't breathe. Can't think.

"You will carry this pup, Phoebe." His voice drops into that tone—the Alpha Voice that makes every wolf in the pack bow their head. "You will not harm it. You will birth my heir."

The command slams into me like a physical blow. My body locks up, every muscle freezing against my will. Inside my mind, Sera howls, a sound of pure agony that tears through my consciousness. She's trapped. We're both trapped.

I try to move my hand toward my stomach, try to fight the command, but my arm won't obey. It's like invisible chains wrap around every part of me.

"No," I whisper, but even my voice sounds weak. Broken.

Raylan turns to Marcus. "She's to remain under observation for another week. Then she returns to the Alpha suite."

He walks out without looking back.

---

Two months crawl by like years.

The Alpha suite has become my prison. Guards stand outside the door—not my loyal Gammas, but warriors I don't recognize. Warriors who answer to Piper, not me.

The Alpha Command holds me like invisible shackles. Every time I think about ending this nightmare, my body refuses to cooperate. I can't even press too hard on my stomach. Can't fall deliberately. Can't do anything that might harm the thing growing inside me.

Sera has gone silent. I reach for her constantly, but she's buried so deep I can barely feel her presence.

Tonight, rain hammers against the windows. The sound matches the chaos in my head. I pace the bedroom, my hand unconsciously touching the mate mark on my neck. Still cold. Still wrong.

The bathroom window. I've been watching it for days, measuring the distance to the ground. Three floors. High enough.

The Alpha Command won't let me hurt myself directly, but maybe—maybe if I fall, if the impact is severe enough, my wolf healing won't be fast enough to save the pregnancy. Maybe I can end this without technically breaking the command.

I climb onto the toilet, then the windowsill. Rain soaks through my nightgown immediately. The ledge is narrow, slippery. Perfect.

I edge along the wall, my bare feet struggling for purchase on the wet stone. Below, the courtyard stretches out, dark and empty. Just a few more steps. Just a little further.

The bedroom door explodes inward.

Raylan's there, his eyes wild, his Alpha aura blazing. He must have felt my intent through the bond—that cursed connection that won't let me go even as it slowly kills me.

"Phoebe!" His voice cracks with something that might be fear, but I don't care anymore.

I lean forward, ready to let gravity take me.

His hand closes around my wrist like a vice. He yanks me backward with enough force to slam me against his chest. We crash onto the bathroom floor together, and he pins me there, his weight crushing.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Not fear in his voice now. Fury. Pure, burning fury.

"Let me go," I gasp. "Just let me go."

"Never." His grip tightens. "You're mine, Phoebe. That pup is mine. And you will obey."

---

The next morning, everything changes.

My loyal guards are gone, replaced by six warriors who watch me like I'm a criminal. Raylan dismisses them all with a wave, then produces a length of chain from behind his back.

Silver-infused. I can smell it from across the room.

"No," I back away, but there's nowhere to go. "Raylan, please—"

He grabs my ankle and locks the shackle around it with a click that sounds like a death sentence. The other end attaches to the bedpost. The silver burns, a constant ache that makes Sera whimper.

"You brought this on yourself," he says, his voice flat. Empty.

Marcus arrives an hour later, carrying a glass vial filled with dark liquid. His hands shake as he approaches the bed.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, not meeting my eyes. "Alpha's orders."

The tonic tastes like dirt and despair. It burns going down, and I gag, but Raylan's there, holding my jaw, forcing me to swallow.

"This will strengthen the pregnancy," Marcus explains, his voice barely audible. "Even if you... even if there's trauma, the pup will survive."

I want to scream. Want to fight. But the silver chain saps my strength, and the Alpha Command holds me frozen.

Piper appears in the doorway, leaning against the frame like she owns the place. The moonstone necklace—my necklace, the one Raylan was supposed to give me—glints at her throat.

She smiles, slow and satisfied, her fingers playing with the pendant.

"Comfortable, Luna?" she asks, her voice dripping with false concern.

I close my eyes and turn my face to the wall.

The chain rattles with every breath.